Daily Archives: July 28, 2019

The ever-expanding gray seal population in our coastal waters is protected in perpetuity by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. The success of the act in restoring gray seal populations is widely acknowledged, but at what point should we address the problematic consequences of that success? With numbers of white sharks — attracted by gray seals — being spotted off our beaches, answering that question is becoming increasingly urgent. >click to read< 17:50

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The lower Yukon River, one of the nation’s poorest regions, has one major industry: chum salmon fishing. The summer fishery usually opens at the beginning of June, but this year it didn’t open until July.,,, Commercial fisherman Lorraine Joseph is fishing with her father and hopes to net a couple hundred fish today, but she won’t be able to catch up to where they usually are this time of year. “But we’re making some money,” she says before climbing in her boat. Photo gallery, >click to read< 16:31

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It’s been a slow lobster season so far in Maine, but the lack of crustaceans isn’t translating into high prices for consumers, and fishermen are still hopeful for a bump in catch this summer.,,, The season so far is similar to the lobster hauls veteran fishermen saw in the 1980s and 1990s, when the boom in catch typically came later, said Steve Train, a lobsterman based in Long Island. It’s frustrating for those who are used to the big, early catches of the modern era, he said. >click to read< 15:11

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An 83-year-old wooden fishing vessel was one of the highlights of a heritage regatta along the north Norfolk coast at the weekend. The event was organised by the charitable trust Rescue Wooden Boats and saw 16 boats displayed at Tugboat Yard on the east quay at Wells. Miss Judith was the oldest to feature. It was built by Johnny Johnston in 1936. Wendy Pritchard brought her boat Welcome Messenger to the event. She said: “It was built in 1963 by Billy May for Bennett Middleton – a Sheringham fisherman and his son Fuzz Middleton, also a Sheringham fisherman.” Nice photo’s! >click to read< 14:15

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Kevin Blacker has a rock-solid plan and he’s not letting it go. Unlike other farmers who just learn to live with boulders,,, As the sea level rises, he expects to see increased demand for boulders to protect the shoreline.,, Unfortunately his boulder-shipping project has been waylaid, he said, by the Connecticut Port Authority’s plan to use the State Pier in New London as a hub exclusively for the assembly and transport of wind farm components. Blacker says the state has implied that the $93 million plan was a done deal. The deal would be with pier operator Gateway Terminal and Bay State Wind, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource. In fact, the agreement is still being negotiated, but Blacker said the state and its partners wanted “to make people think it’s done and that there’s nothing we can do about it. >click to read< 12:26

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The Environment Secretary Michael Gove has today delivered a boost for innovation in the UK fishing and seafood industries with the opening of a new £10m research and development fund. The move paves the way for the potential use of artificial intelligence by fishermen and providing a potential double return on investment for the UK economy. >click to read< 11:23

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It’s hard to say whether the old Revere Copper and Brass site is more ghost town or field of dreams. Michael and Charlie Quinn, a son and father who recently purchased the 14-acre lot fronting on the northern part of New Bedford harbor, are going with the latter. So will I. The Quinns plan to make the old metal factory into a shipbuilding yard for their related Shoreline Resources businesses — which over three decades have included commercial fishing vessels, Standard Marine Outfitters and East Coast Fabrication, a ship repair shop. By Jack Spillane >click to read< 10:45

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State fisheries managers have released a new overview of commercially important fish stocks, and a commercial fishing advocacy group and the state branch of a recreational fishing conservation nonprofit seem supportive of its results.,, fisheries managers are working on Amendment 2 to the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan. This amendment, if the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission adopts it at its meeting Wednesday through Friday, Aug. 21-23 in Raleigh, would implement measures to reduce both the commercial and recreational harvest by 62-72%. N.C. Fisheries Association President and commercial fisherman Glenn Skinner said,,, <click to read< 09:39

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Devin Zelck was fast asleep on the deck of the boat Dogbar at 7 a.m. last Friday when the big fish took the bait. “I woke up to my dad’s screaming, ‘We’re on, we’re on!,” she said. Ten hours later,,, Jim Alvarez, the captain of the boat who, along with Zelck’s father, helped the teen haul in the massive fish, said it was the biggest tuna he has caught in his 10-year career. Devin Zelck said she had gone tuna-fishing with her father, Steve, a commercial fisherman out of Gloucester, several times but had always come up empty. They headed out at 5 a.m. last Friday on the Dogbar for what was supposed to be a short, half-day trip. >click to read< 08:47

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here